WHNetwork Blog

Margie, kill me, because I would kill you for your place. I kid, yet green is my color of the day. I must admit, my best days were spent with like-minded people, I mean those who love food and wine as I do. It's like a first date with tons of people for which you have everything in common. I have probably a thousand analogies that I can put you in touch with, but I think there is another tale that puts you in touch with that experience. As a matter of fact, the more profound the experience, the less likely I am to talk about it. That is probably why I find much in the Bible hedged. A bit of tongue-in-cheek.

I have no water into wine stories, but I once brought barbecue up to Perry at Ridge Vineyards one Sunday afternoon in the early '90's; he popped a bottle of the '81 Jimsomere cab I thought was long since gone. We sat for a few hours before we went into the caves and tasted barrel samples from the last decade. I crashed my bicycle on the way back down the hill. In spite of the bruises, it was a great day.

Hopefully you find yourself eating common foods with a new-found condiment. Heaven forbid it be a great pinot noir. That is death-bed stuff. I have had occasion to ask God to take me after such an experience. Cabs, chards, syrahs and the occasional zin would allow me to beckon Dionysus, but I would promise myself in the back of my mind that I would hold out for a great d'quiem or a renegade from Sonoma awaited with baited breath before I committed my soul. I always loved the fat in pinot provided by Tony Soter out of Russian River. But those days are gone and he makes a Chambertin-style out of Oregon now that pales to his earlier versions.

Every wine-maker seems to want to be Rembrandt in their early years, painting with broad and bold strokes, and without provocation they seem to move to the pastels of the fainted-hearted Monetesque.

You have an enormous responsibility in your job. You have to impress these wine-makers to stay on point. The one single person in California who hasn't lost her focus is Helen Turley. Wine camps and wine seminars and wine education and wine crap that doesn't focus on the art and the responsibility of the individual and the industry will make for a fine afternoon, but not much of a future. The market deserves great fruit not great marketing.

Always yours, and always with more opinion than you asked for,

Dann Reardon

PS, Wine used to be just fun for me. I am not sure when it became so serious.